Today, the Campaign Legal Center filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to defend Hawaii’s contractor contribution ban and disclosure regulations in Yamada v. Weaver.  Plaintiff-Appellant A-1 A-Lectrician, Inc. (A-1), a government contractor, seeks to overturn Hawaii’s pay-to-play law, as well as to invalidate a range of disclosure requirements applicable to independent spending in state elections. 

The Yamada case is part of a nationwide litigation offensive challenging a broad range of campaign finance laws at the federal, state and local levels.  But disclosure and pay-to-play laws similar to Hawaii’s have been upheld across the country as the courts have consistently recognized the important government interest in preventing political corruption or the appearance of such corruption. 

“A-1 is essentially asking the court to strike down Hawaii’s anti-corruption laws so it can contribute to officeholders while holding government contracts and can make independent expenditures while keeping the public in the dark about its activities,” said Tara Malloy, Legal Center Senior Counsel.  “The undisclosed political activities proposed by A-1 would undermine public trust in government and pose precisely the potential for corruption that led to the challenged laws’ enactment.”

To read the Campaign Legal Center’s brief, click here.

Today’s decision by the DC Court of Appeals is disappointing in that it will allow the continuing wholesale evasion of disclosure laws passed by Congress and upheld by the courts. At issue in this case is an FEC regulation that resulted in an almost complete failure by groups making “electioneering communications” to publicly disclose their contributors. 

The district court had found that the FEC had created a gaping loophole in the disclosure requirement when it issued a regulation in 2007 that required disclosure only of donors who had given “for the purpose of” funding “electioneering communications.”  Today’s decision sends the case back to the trial court, which had overturned the FEC regulation. The Court of Appeals has directed the lower court to provide the FEC an opportunity to revise the regulation in a rulemaking proceeding.  If the FEC fails to issue a new rule, then district court will decide whether the existing rule is arbitrary and capricious, as Representative Van Hollen has argued.

This order effectively means that there will be no disclosure of the donors funding the tens of millions of dollars being spent on political advertising by 501(c)(4) groups like Crossroads GPS and Priorities USA in the 2012 election cycle.  In the wake of this decision we are once again left with all of the unlimited spending unleashed by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, but with virtually none of the disclosure promised by the narrow five Justice majority in the case. 

The Campaign Legal Center is part of the legal team representing Rep. Van Hollen in this case, which is led by Roger Witten of WilmerHale.  The legal team also includes lawyers from WilmerHale, Democracy 21 and Public Citizen. 

To read the order issued today, click here.

Today, a federal court in Illinois accepted an amici brief by the Campaign Legal Center, Chicago Appleseed and the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform defending state contribution limits over the objections of Illinois Liberty PAC, the plaintiff in the case.  The Legal Center had originally submitted the brief last week in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, with the assistance of local counsel David R. Melton and Thomas Rosenwein, in a challenge to Illinois’ contribution limits. 

“Illinois Liberty PAC is asking the court to ignore Supreme Court precedent and strike down contribution limits far higher than those previously upheld by the Supreme Court,” said Paul S. Ryan, Legal Center Senior Counsel.  “Contribution limits have repeatedly been upheld in the interest of preventing corruption or the appearance of corruption and it is ironic that this challenge is being brought against the laws of a state where the last two Governors have gone to jail for corruption.  The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that limits on contributions are constitutional as long as they are not so low as to prevent candidates and PACs from raising sufficient funds for effective advocacy.  There is no doubt that candidates and PACs can raise sufficient funds for effective advocacy under Illinois’ generous limits.”

Illinois Liberty PAC v. Madigan challenged the state’s $50,000 limit on PAC contributions to candidates, its $5,000 limit on contributions from individuals to candidates and its $10,000 limit on contributions from individuals to a PAC.  Plaintiffs claim these limits violate their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights to free and freedom of association.  Federal PAC may accept only $5,000 from individuals a mere tenth of the Illinois cap and the Supreme Court has upheld Missouri state contribution caps ranging from $275 to $1,075.

To read the Campaign Legal Center’s brief accepted by the court today, click here.